Ask the Author: Post Your Questions for Thaddeus Nowak Here

[Melissa]

Do you have a question for Ted? Post it here. He'll be by later to answer everyone's questions.

[Editing Services]

What was your inspiration for this book? Do you have any quirks that you have to have when writing?

[Andrea]

My question (and I wonder this with a lot of books I read) is how do you come up with the names of the characters and names of places? Such as Artan/Ontic--that's not something you hear every day.

[Thaddeus]

Cynthia wrote: "What was your inspiration for this book? Do you have any quirks that you have to have when writing?"

The Heirs of Cothel Series started as an attempt to break out of a little writers block I was dealing with while I as working on a different book. That book was a "masterpiece" in the making 200k+ words and not close to being done, and it was "perfect".

To get out of being stuck, I started writing random scenes with different characters. One of the pieces I wrote was where a young girl was alone in a public house and a conflict broke out. She stepped in to help protect some and had to reveal she was a witch in order to escape.

I found I was so inspired by the character that I had to figure out who she was, where she was going, and why she was alone in the world.

At the time, what I did for her sat on the shelf so I could keep plowing away at the "masterpiece". However, I finally came back to Stephenie's story and decided I was going to write it instead of the other story.

Turned out to be a good choice.


As far as quirks go, nothing too odd. I normally listen to music, sometimes the same song on repeat for hours. I've gone for a day without realizing I had been listen to the same song.

[Thaddeus]

Andrea wrote: "My question (and I wonder this with a lot of books I read) is how do you come up with the names of the characters and names of places? Such as Artan/Ontic--that's not something you hear every day."

Names can be hard. However, I realized at some point that our world has a lot of New in front of names, so perhaps being original isn't always that important.

When I need something quick, I normally take a long word and break out part of it, perhaps flipping some letters around. Noitar was one such name. It was some word that ended in -ration. Not even sure what the word was I used.

I try to keep the names in an area sounding similar when I can, trying to lend the idea of regional dialects that influence word choice.


For character names, when I comes across something that speaks to me, I make note of it in a list and I'll go back to that if nothing comes up. I used to work in retail and I'd see a lot of unusual names or spelling variants.

[Editing Services]

Thaddeus wrote: "Cynthia wrote: "What was your inspiration for this book? Do you have any quirks that you have to have when writing?"

The Heirs of Cothel Series started as an attempt to break out of a little write..."

Thank you for answering my questions. I am the same way with music. I get stuck on one song and I will play it over and over. What kind of music do you listen to?

[Thaddeus]

I'll listen to most things, but I'm not much for country music.

Topping my list of recently played music are:
The Sounds
The Cranberries
Avril Lavigne
Garbage
Amy Macdonald
Two Steps From Hell
Lindsey Stirling